Fm honored to be with you today to share some personal
memories of the early history of recreational diving as
recorded in SKIN DIVER MAGAZINE. Many articles and books
have now been written about this history, particularly SCUBA
AMERICA by Al Tillman and Zale Parry, and the very thorough
magazine coverage in the January 20O1 Anniversary issue of
SKIN DIVER, so what I have to say today is just "a drop in
the bucket" of the many people and events of the times. I
hope I will be forgiven for leaving out so many people,
including the many advertisers, manufacturers, and dive
shops who made it all possible financially for SKIN DIVER
MAGAZINE to succeed. I only wish that my friend, diving
partner, and co-founder and editor of SKIN DIVER, Jim Auxier,
could also be here to help me and correct my recollection of
that time in our lives. Jim died on May 26th this year and
is now a "cosmic mariner, destination unknown."

Let me take you back over half a century to the 1940's.
America had just gone through a decade of deep depression,
followed by World War DL During the war years, until 1946,
Americans had been willing to sacrifice for the war effort.
Most everyday items had been rationed, including shoes, some
foodstuffs, gasoline and tires. Everyone had a ration book
with stamps to assure that items were purchased only in the
specified name and number approved by the government. No new
cars were produced. No new homes were being built. All
production was directed to the war effort. As the war ended,
and life began to return to normal, people were hungry to
find new recreational outlets. Travel was still difficult;
propeller-driven airplanes were slow, with very few
destinations for people seeking recreational outlets. Only
persons living near bodies of water were able to participate
in the enjoyment of the new sport of "goggle fishing". Since
cars were still all pre-war, travel to any place of great
distance was unusual. Thus, diving became a territorial
sport for most of us. Sporting goods stores carried only a
few hunting and fishing items. There was nothing for the
neophyte diver. Equipment could be found only in limited
amounts in war surplus stores.

In fact, I found my first pair of fins, black, Owen
Churchill, made from a synthetic rubber, from butadiene, in
a war surplus store m Long Beach in 1946. I had been given a
Sea Dive faceplate in 1945 from a fellow worker, a chemist
at Texaco Lab in Long Beach. I was soasssow to tty my taad
at the new sport From the first time I entered the water at
Laguna Beach, I was "hooked". It wasn't long until I found
many others who, too, were enamored with the sport. Most
people were working long hours, with very little leisure
time. Incomes were limited, with the average household
income of less than $6,000 per year. Life was very simple
compared to today. Material things were not readily
available. All these factors led to individual and family
beach activities which were free. Soon divers began to come
together in groups to enjoy their new-found interests in
common. Clubs were formed, and competition between the clubs
became a regular occurrence. Most recreational divers used
the oceans as a source of supplemental food items. Abalone,
lobster, and fish became part of the diet of nearly every
diver. Even those who weren't seafood lovers sold their
catches to supplement their incomes. Why was Southern
California such an early stew pot for development of the new
sport" The endless beaches, nearby islands, clear and
generally calm water, appealed to the appetites of those
seekers entering into a fascinating new world. In addition,
the existing industry that had been making war machinery was
heavily situated on the West Coast, the so-called "window to
the Pacific". So much of the industry that had been building
ships, airplanes, and munitions was now easily converted to
the development of sought- after consumer goods. The
knowledge of precise machinists, who had been working in
stainless steel and other metals, workers in the rubber and
plastics industries with scientific backgrounds, experiences
and skills, and the petroleum industry which had developed
cameras able to film compasses in sealed containers at great
depths and pressure, the process known as directional
drilling, as well as many other technical advances, led to a
smooth transition in development and manufacture of the
goods being clamored for.

Actually, there had been diving activity going on in
Southern California since around 1929, when the Bottom
Scratchers of San Diego, the first organized diving club in
the U.S, was formed. It became the model and impetus for
many of the future clubs to come into being.

That is not to say that recreational diving was limited to
the West Coast of the United States. There was much going on
the East Coast of the US and in Europe, which we now know
was a forerunner in the development of spearfishing and
diving gear. ft is just that we, here in California, did not
have knowledge of those developments. Only after our many
contacts in the US and abroad, later when SKIN DIVER became
the first fannel for the exchange of information, were we
able to envision what had been going on in tandem worldwide,
because of the limited information we had at the time. Most
early recreational divers, naturally, became the inventors
and builders of their own equipment, trading or selling
pieces of hand-made equipment, or sharing ideas with others.

I, too, became a sort of inventor then; first making a
snorkel from a clear, plastic tube filled with silica gel,
heated in a lab oven to the proper shape and using a
military mouthpiece purchased from a war surplus store. I
then tried making a breathing unit using a Bendix high
altitude regulator, coating the diaphram with latex rubber
and attaching the regulator to a 38 en. ft. surplus tank
which could be filled to 2,000 pounds or more. I used
military webbing belts for the harness. Using the rig
numerable times" with no knowledge of the dangers involved,
I guess I was one of the fortunate ones to still be here
today.

I also developed a C02 cartridge gun in 1950, which I named
the Barracuda, receiving patent, number 2,660, 993, in
December of 1953, but the guns were being marketed as eady
as 1950 and 1951. Some 500 were manufactured and sold to
such individuals as Lord Louis Mountbatten, tested by the
UDT as armament for underwater warriors, and marketed
through Abercrombie and Fitch and others. My patent did not
infringe on earlier inventions of Mueller in 1932, Klein in
1937, Greene in 1941, Mills in 1945, and Hddemess in l950,
inventors who had developed apparatus or harpoons to spear,
using C02 cylinders. Mine was powered with a Sparklets bulb
or cartridge with a volume ofl0.2cc's, an internal pressure
of 1,000 pounds per square inch at 70 degrees Fahrenheit,
expelling a spear shaft with exceptional speed and force.
The reason 1 mention this is that this invention became a
stepping stone toward the development of SKIN DIVER. The
promotion and sale of (he Barracuda later became a
commercial contact for me with prospective advertisers for
the magazine. One example is the "Shoot Out" story with Rene
Bussoz. ( As you may know, Bussoz brought the first
Aqua-Lung to America . His company became US Divers. I would
go to see Rene every so often as the Barracuda was being
developed and finally manufactured. He was a very
circumspect French lawyer, selling clothing and French dive
gear in Westwood, California. I remember him always sipping
milk through a straw (ulcers or nerves, I guess).

Rene thought only items French were quality! Such items
included the Cavalero Arbalete, the Squale mask (It was
good, at only $5.95 in those days!), and, of course, the
Aqua-Lung (at $99.95 in 1951). Rene challenged me to a
"shoot out" in his pool Though his store was in Westwood in
a up-scale section, his home was in BelAir in s very
exclusive area. Anyway, we went from the store to his home.
Around the pool were several beautiful women in bikinis (the
first I had ever seen!) This was in 1950-51. Rene's pool was
about 40 feet long, a standard size for some real swimming.
As Uses watched from the topside, along with his lovely
friends, I disconnected the lines to the two guns, cocked
the rubbers on the Arbalete, placed the handle butt of the
rubber gun against the wall, and fired. It seat the 4'
X5/l6al diameter shaft down the pool about 2/3rds of the
way, which was just "o.k". I then inserted the Sparklets C02
cartridge with 1,000 # pressure into the breech load of the
Barracuda, screwed it tight, placed its butt end against the
wall and fired. The bubbles belched, the 4'3/8111" shaft
sped to the very end of the 40 foot pool, and we found later
that it had chipped the tile. Reae was crashed and
ashen-faced. It may have dampened our friendship a little,
for later, after the magazine was doing well, and we had
published ads for the Rose-Pro, a single-hose regulator,
which Bussoz felt was dangerous, he "pulled" his ads and
forced Voit to follow, the reason being that US Divers
manufactured Voit's two-hose regulators on contract. Jim and
I were forced to test the Rose Pro, along with then- reps,
to 135' off Redondo Beach's Deep. We felt the regulator was
safe, and it required no clearing. (This was before "non-
return" valves came along, such as the Hope-Page, used on
two- hose regulators later. Interestingly, in a very short
time, single-hose regulators "ruled the day").

We were hurt by lack of these two important advertisers for
a time, but soon both Bussoz and Voit came back stronger
than ever! We had made it a policy not to kowtow to anyone,
and not make deals. Everyone paid the same price for ads and
got the same attention to ad accuracy and standards.
The two basic pieces of equipment which every new
recreational diver in the 40's needed were a mask and a pair
of fins. As I have said, some innovators were making diving
equipment. Face plates were made by Chuck Sturgill, using
suction hose 4"-5" in diameter and a glass window shaped to
fit an individual's face. The Bottom Scratchers, Wally Potts
and Jack Prodanovich, had also redesigned the Japanese Ama
mask of the 1930s, using a metal rim, softer rubber and a
custom-contoured fit, after experimenting with various
goggle designs.

Some crude fins were made of tennis shoes, plywood, and
hinges and so forth. Keith Kummerfeld says that he can still
sometimes hear the click-clack of those fins underwater to
this day.

As you can see, these two pieces of essential equipment were
uncomfortable, and difficult to design and build, so the
commercial introduction of these manufactured products were
welcomed by the new recreational diving world. Beginning
business under the name of Sea Net Manufacturing Company,
whose first office and factory was located on Terminal
Island before the start of World War H, Lawrence Romano led
the pioneers of marketing underwater gear, first with the
Sea Dive mask in 1946, and later with such items as a self
contained breathing unit with a half hour air supply,
spears, floating knives, look boxes, swim mitts, surfboards,
yes, surfboards! Romano and Sea Net became the first
manufacturer of swim and dive masks in die United States.
The Romanes also developed a mailing list, from which the
individuals became members of Frankie the Frogman Club. The
list, compiled from ads placed in Popular Mechanics and
other magazines of the time, was intended to solicit
business.

Fins had a somewhat earlier appearance, according to Nick Icorn, the authority one must turn to for information of
these earliest basic needs for divers, "m 1938, Owen
Churchill, an Olympic yachtsman from Los Angeles established
Churchill Swim Fins. He had obtained the patent rights,
dating from 1927 from Louis De Coriieu of France, then
designed his fins in the shape of a fish tafl. By 1954 he
had produced some 200,000 pairs." From Owen Churchill Fins
to Bud Brown's Duckfeet and Wide View Mask, (the large purge
valve mounted on the front), and on to Swinunaster, Voit
Rubber Company and later to Seubapro, Mares, Force Fins, and
Apollo, the development of the two basic pieces of
recreational diving equipment has continued. For most early
skin divers, a mask, fins, and a spear of some sort
satisfied their needs to become underwater hunters. Until
about 1945 a pole spear with three to five prong-tines was
used to spear average sized fish. Later Jack Prodonovich
designed a power head to be attached to the pole, allowing
the diver to kill and land a much larger prey. And even
later, spear guns with powerful rubbers became the
preference for most diver- hunters. For abalone and lobster
hunters, there was a need for an abalone iron and/or a pair
of gloves.

For warmth, divers first used military surplus wool sweaters
and/or longjohns, next came latex rubber dry suits of
various designs, until the foam rubber wetsuits came along
with all their advantages for comfort, ease, and durability.
With basic equipment now available and the increasing
widespread interest in the sport, more and more individuals
joined clubs, m Southern California so many clubs were being
formed that Bffl Barada and others saw the political need to
become organized, to become a group useful in promoting
beach access up and down tile California coastline, to
promote fairness in fish and Game rules for recreational
divers, thus creating a better camaraderie among divers and
pole fishermen and a general unity among fellow divers.
Barada was an LA County fireman and champion spearfisherman,
who became a contributor for more than 30 years to SKIN
DIVER magazine. He proved to be a strong leader and a good
organizer. Later he manufactured dry suits, with the company
name Bel-Aqua. He also authored several books, including
Let's Go Diving and Mask and flippers by Lloyd Bridges as
told to Bill Barada. Ralph Davis, also an LA County fireman,
became the official record keeper of speared fish for the
International Underwater Spearfishing Association for all
those individuals who wished to have their catch entered in
the record book. The rules were established in 1947-48,
headed by Ralph Davis and the LA Fire Department Neptunes,
working with Jack Prodonovich and Wally Potts of the San
Diego Bottom Seratehers. The record keeping is still being
carded on under the direction of Skip Hellen. Ralph Davis
also was instrumental in organizing and directing the first
"National Spearfishing" competition in Laguna Beach in 1950.
He negotiated for the Helms trophies and medals to be
awarded. Owen Churchill donated the first Owen Churchill
Perpetual Trophy which he presented in person. Other
dignitaries, such as movie personalities and the son and
daughter of then Governor Earl Warren, Earl Warren Jr. and
Honeybear Warren, also attended the competitions and
presented awards. The purpose of competition in those early
days was to judge which individuals and clubs (the team
members made up of three divers chosen by prior elimination
contests within each club), were the "best", based on the
size and number offish speared in a four hour time period.
Derbies were also held, with prizes given for largest and
second largest lobsters, abalone, and fish. Most of the
divers at the time wore no dive suits- only their skin and a
pair of swim trunks. As you can see, die emphasis on
recreational diving, at that time, was very different from
that of today.

Jim Auxier and I were members of the Dolphin Diving Club of
Compton. We had both moved to California from the southern
Midwest and found a common interest in the ocean world and
diving and Spearfishing. We agreed that there should be some
organization to coordinate diving councils and to connect
divers across the state and nation, as well as the rest of
the world. One night, in 1951, after a Dolphin meeting, Jim
and I decided that the two of us would launch a monthly
magazine that would be distributed nationally. B would be
called The Skin Diver. Neither of us had a formal journalism
background, out J^i ^^s a linotype operator and thoroughly
trained printer, working for Chambers Printing in Soufhgate,
California. I had made the rounds to most of the existing
diving industry in Southern California, trying to "peddle"
my Barracuda speargun, so most were familiar to me as
prospective advertisers to get the magazine going. Each of
us had a specific talent to contribute, as well as an.
optimistic attitude about the future of diving. We made a
good team, although we did not always agree on all issues
involved. We pooled a few dollars, printed up some business
and rate cards, set up a small office in Jim's garage, and
prepared a 16 page "dummy." We managed to get six
advertisers for the December 1951, first issue. Two thousand
copies of that issue were printed, at a cover price of 25
cents per copy. By December of 1952, a fall year later, we
had only fifteen advertisers. Still we persisted, struggling
financially, but full of hope for the future. The magazine
was well received, but growth was slow, and we both had to
continue to hold down fall-time jobs in addition to our
passion to succeed with our dream. From the beginning. Skin
Diver became a stimuli for club interest and growth and for
the formation of the Council of Diving Clubs in 1952. By
then the magazine had a new address, a P.O. Box 128, in
Lynwood, California, Our actual business office was moved
from Jim's garage to State Street, and then we were finally
able to buy even larger quarters on Long Beach Boulevard in
Lynwood.

We did not pay for articles or photos for most of the first
tea years. A by-line or a photo credit seemed to satisfy
most of the contributors.(The editorial in the May 1952
issue put it plainly: " Skin Diving and Spearfishing are
sports, enjoyed by every participant. Every diver has
something to say, whether it be fact or fantasy. If he or
she feels that it is interesting, educational and beneficial
to other divers, this is the place to express it. Should we
have to pay for the stories on these pages, there would
never have been a magazine. The advertising here just does
pay for the printing, sometimes not that much. AH other
expenses are taken from your subscription money. We don?t
want to lower the quality or standards already set, so there
is no financial return for anything submitted for
publication. Commercial writers have many other publications
that are interested in the sport that do make returns, but
this is a specialized magazine for underwater enthusiasts-
written by them- that other divers may be enlightened by
their experience, travels and methods.")

Despite no monetary gain for their contributions, in
addition to club news, writers began to submit more and more
articles and photos to The Skin Diver. During the first year
of publication, from the first issue on, more than just
Spearfishing and club news, articles of interest to almost
everyone became regular features of the magazine. I think
this is one of the major reasons for the continued growth
and longevity of SKIN DIVER. The first year pretty well set
the stage for the direction the magazine would take. Many
well faiown names were found in those first twelve issues:

Conrad Limbaugh of Scripps was a regular writer of
scientific articles, as "California Sheepshead" and the
"California Sea Lion". Robert C. WBson wrote about the
California Spiny Lobster, as did Bill Barada, who, along
with numerous contributors, wrote articles about sharks and
other marine animals.

Andreas Rechnitzer wrote numerous articles in the first
issues, including his early history of skin diving, man and
his relation to the sea, and the physiological effects of
diving. He also stressed ecological and life history facts
of the marine fishes of the West Coast and the basic data
desired in any reporting of these fish. Many articles
dealing with diving physiology were published early on.

In addition, from the beginning, there were stories relating
to salvage and rescue operations, hard hat diving, the UDT
and, later, the Navy Seals. Articles, along with photos,
from the American Museum of Natural History were submitted.
Dr. Eugenic dark wrote articles about her spearfishmg
observations in the Red Sea. As early as January of 1952,
Australian divers were sending photographs^ articles and
reprints of national diving news from "down under". Rodney
Jonklass and Arthur C. dark wrote articles from Ceylon. In
me US, inland divers and East Coast and Florida clubs and
individuals sent in news and items of interest to fellow
divers.

Jack Prodonovich and many other divers submitted photos and
articles on "how to <!o it" or "tow we made it". There also
were stories from world travelers, such as Don dark, Ted
Warren, Max Jones, John RifTe and Stan Waterman. We
published articles written by such well-known personalities
as Fred Roberts, Dr. Wheeler North on "Kelp Studies", and
Bob Din of the Navy Electronics Lab. The July 1952 issue
included an article by Bob Ketcham, then president of the
Ocean Fish Protective Association, informing readers that
the Council of Diving Clubs had voted to affiliate
themselves with OFPA. He stated that the more diving clubs
and individuals gave underwater information to this
organization, the more influence it would have on the entire
scope of Salt Water Conservation. Was this the first article
on the importance of ocean ecology" The August issue
followed with an article by Ron Drununond on the need to set
aside "Fish Reserves" or "Protected Marine Gardens" where
marine life could be studied undisturbed and unafraid of
man. Realize, these articles were printed in 1952, a half
century ago. in SKIN DIVER, with a circulation of a mere
2.0001 His magazine and divers had already begun to help in
photographing, studying, documenting and protecting the
underwater world bottom up, from the continental shelf to
the littoral zone and its tidepools.

At this moment, I should say, by the end of 1952 we "had
crossed the Rubicon." There was now no turning back, only to
dig in and grow. I guess we had made history, and when one
is making history and living through it, it looks messy and
sometimes uncomfortable. Looking back, quote my old friend
Sophocles, who wrote, "one must wait until the evening to
see how splendid the day has been." Those first years, the
two of us were the entire staff of SKIN DIVER. Jim, as the
editor, also set all the hot type for the first two years at
Chambers before the magazine outgrew the capabilities of
Chambers to handle the numbers of such a large printing. Jim
was a quiet, reserved, dignified, and serious individual and
a very exacting editor, always trying to achieve perfection.
He felt that good proofreading was a must. We did have
professional proofreading help at times, and some articles
were checked and improved by a little old retired
schoolteacher. Our first typists didn't last long, nor did
our first bookkeeper.

Connie Johnson came along in 1957 and stayed with SKIN DIVER
for 30 years, retiring as Managing Editor. Ross Oboey was an
early driving force on the editorial staff. Leaving for
"greener pastures", he would later write over 100 "How To"
books, as well as the very collectible book. Men Against the
Sea, (1969), dedicating me book to Jim and me and to Jon
Hardy "who taught me (Ross) to dive". My assistant, Qren
Beard, as ad coordinator, was very important to me in
carrying a very heavy advertising load. He stayed with the
magazine for many years after we sold to Peterson
Publications in 1963. John Gaffhey was a controversial
advertising salesman for the magazine for two and a half
years, later going on to form NASDS.

The real "life blood" of the magazine was its continued
generous contributors of articles, photographs and cartoons.
Many contributors such as Dick Anderson and Bev Morgan wrote
humorous stories and true adventures. Bev also wrote
technical articles, one on regulators in June of 1962,
consisting of 34 pages, encompassing all regulators known at
the time. Bob Marx wrote about treasure diving, and Ramsey
Parks wrote about diving on the Andrea Doria. dare Boothe
Luce wrote fiction, and Peter Stackpole wrote about his
design for an underwater towing device, POWER DIVER, There
was a strong drift emphasizing SCUBA diving as more and more
divers entered the water. Neal Hess was writing a column in
SKIN DIVER called the "Instructors Corner", certifying
divers to become instructors by reviewing their course
outlines and running their names in the column. The new
program was called the "National Diving Patrol". Los Angeles
County had initiated a Scuba diving certification program in
1954, under the direction of Al Tillman, who, with Bev
Morgan, had studied under Conrad Limbaugh of Scripps. Some
YMCA's across the country and the Red Cross had also begun
to provide programs. These were not as uniform as the LA
County program, and it was obvious that there was a need for
a national scuba divers instruction program. Finally, in
1960, NATO came into being under the direction of Al
Tillman, as President, and Neal Hess, as Executive
Secretary.

Although SCUBA diving and its accompanying equipment had
been written about and advertised in die magazine since the
first issue, the emphasis had continued on breath- holding.
One reason for slow acceptance by many divers was the cost
of equipment, for many years prohibitive. But for the
manufacturers and dealers. SCUBA was where the money was.

A colorful contributor was Gustav DaDa Valle, a well- known
diving pioneer, writing from Haiti. Along with Dick Bonin, a
former member of the UDT, they were to buy Scubapro from a
bankrupt Healthways in 1962 for $1.00, making it into a
successful business before selling to Johnson Worldwide
Associates, Inc. During the first few years, black and white
photography, both top side and underwater dominated the
pages of SKIN DIVER, showing spearfishermen, wreck divers,
and sometimes a beach temptress. Almost all underwater
photos were shot without flash. In France in 1954 Dimitri
Rebikoff had developed a torpedo camera device with strobe
light lighting where the photographer would be towed as he
filmed. He made the first underwater color film in 1950
which won the Cannes Film Festival prize in 1951. Harold E.
Edgerton, Professor of Electrical Measurements at M.I.T, was
also an early pioneer in Underwater Lamp- Camera combination
development, with some controversy as to who came first, he
or RebikofT.

There m no way I can mention all the photographers who
contributed to the magazine. I know I will have missed many,
but a few of the early memorable photographers that come to
mind are Lamar Boren, Ron Church, Homer Lockwood, Herb
Sampson, Jordan Klein, Chuck Peterson, Jerry Greenberg, Mart
Toggweiler, Stan Waterman, Ron Merker, Barton McNedy, Bev
Morgan, Victor De Sanctis, and tile Ernie Brooks', both
Senior and Junior.

During those formative years, from 1951 through 1963, camera
housings were being made in divers garages and by skilled
photographers and craftsmen. I built an underwater camera
housing in 1953, placing a Leica in a plastic cylinder with
outside controls through 0 ring seals. The port was 1/4111
inch optical glass. I used it for years until die Calypso
came along. Shooting suffers at water level, and wearing
just mask and fins, I got some interesting photos with my
camera. I also shot numerous black and white, and some
color, underwater photos, many used in the magazine. I
believe that the camera housings that changed underwater
photography were the 35mm Calypso, later to become the
Nikonos, the RoIIeimarin, 2 1/4* X 2 1/4", and the Sampson
16mm movie camera.
E.R.Cross wrote books on underwater photography and TV, with
diagrams and photos of gear. Mart Toggwefler published a
book. How to Build Your Own Camera Housing in 1962.

In June of 1955 SKIN DIVER published its first four-color
cover, an original painting by John Steel. Jack Dudley and
other artists produced future covers that are now considered
very collectible. Four-color cover and inside color
underwater photos were published in the October 1955 Special
Underwater Photography issue. A very popular regular feature
of the early magazines was "The Autobiography of a Skin
Diver" later to become "Personality Spotlight." These
columns featured divers from around the world, first in
their own words, and later through interviews. The
translation of some of the pieces required a bit of travel
around the area to find someone who spoke the language to
help u& Some of the divers who were featured included such
colorful characters as Guido Garabaldi, Dr. Stuart Tovini,
Egidio Cressi, Ludovico Mares -all Italian; Rodney Jonklass
and Gerd von Dinklage Schulenberg (Ceylon.), Don Linldater
(Australia), Abel Gazio (Brazil) and Art Finder, Hugh
Bradner, Jack Dudley and Phflip Nash- all United States, as
well as many others. In 1956 we reprinted the entire
Compleat Goggler, as a serial in the magazine. Then in 1957,
we had 2,000 copies of Gilpatrick's Compleat Goggler (1934)
reprinted in hardback by Dodd Mead, the original publisher,
with a forward for SKIN DIVER by James Dugan. At $5.00 a
copy (cost us $2.00 to print), sales were slow. Now if you
can find a reprinted copy, it may cost upward of $200. Ea
October 1956 the Ale of the magazine was changed to SKIN
DIVER MAGAZINE. From the mail and newspaper clipping service
Cari Kohler put together a feature called "Driftwood." His
cartoons and the column were informative and popular. Some
of the items were for real and others were contrived. Other
popular features were Ed and Jean Dowd^s Junior Fin Fans and
Alan Petrie's cooking columns. After 1955 more and more
women were featured as both divers and as bathing beauties-
"Miss Driftwood", *Miss Beach Temptress", "Miss
International Beach Temptress". Techni-Facts was first
published in May of 1961, written by W.Lee Cozad and Robert
Given. The column ran off" and on until 1963. Then in May of
1964 the series was revived as Technifacts, written by EJL
Cross, who would continue to author it for over 35 years for
Peterson Publications.

Over the years, many issues contained various extra goodies.
The December 1959 issue contained a free divers flag decal
for your tank or car window. It helped to serve as a means
to educate boaters and the non-diving public about the new
divers flag. m January 1961, "Diving News", a tabloid sized
newspaper, published bi-monthly, was sent to att subscribers
free and was designated as the official organ of the
Underwater Society of America. Ten separate issues were
published through October 1961. In December it became a
quarterly insert in the magazine. The last issue, still in
newspaper form, and having 16 pages, appeared in September
1962- Subsequently, all the "Diving News" columns, features^
etc. became a regular part of SKIN DIVER MAGAZINE. The
drowning and diving accident "obits" from the news service
were a "downer" to us. We felt obligated to "put our
shoulder to the wheel" to help and encourage safety in skin
and SCUBA training, printing materials relating to such, and
holding ad hoc meetings in our offices by people like Al
Tillman and Neal Hess before NAUL We provided a place,
printed material, and gave input to Jay Albeanese and Louis
Cuccia in the formation of NOGI, as well as to those
considering what to use as an official Diver's flag. SKIN
DIVER also provided assistance and publicity for the
International Film Festivals, organized and developed by Al
Tillman and Zale Parry, and presented first in 1957 with a
special showing of Dimitri Rebikoffs motion picture footage.
We felt that we were an aid to all things related to diving
that were wholesome. safe and sportsmanlike.

We were honored by visits from and to such notable figures
as Emile Gagnan, Jacques Cousteau and the crew of the
Calypso, Hans Hass, Hannes Keller, Egidio Cressi, Professor
Luigi Ferraro, George and Paul Beuchat, Luis Marden, Lloyd
Bridges, Abel Gario and many others in those early years,
one of the plus sides of publishing. I do believe that the
beginning years held an intimacy that somehow faded with
growth overtime.

Did we have any competitors during those early years" I must
say "Yes" to that question.

We had 11 competitors during the time that we owned and
published SKIN DIVER. Some of these were Waterworld in
'55-'57, our strongest competitor, published by Peterson
Publications, which was later to buy SKIN DIVER. It leaned
toward the sensational, used three-color covers and cheap
paper, and did not receive the support of the clubs and
loyal diver-readers that we had, so they "folded their
tent." Another strong competitor was Underwater, published
in Florida in '61-'62 then folded. A few others were Sport
Diving, Diver Below, Watersports, and Waterbug. There were
also many foreign magazines. A few good ones of the time
were Mondo Sommerso and Pescasport (Italy), Sous Marine
(France), and Delphin and Neptun (Germany). In our research
we discovered an Italian magazine, Mondo Subacqueo, which
had been published in 1950. probably the most valuable in my
collection, because of its age and the personal autograph of
Egidio Cressi. When a new magazine would come along, we
might lose some advertisers and contributors for a time. AH
our competitors eventually filled, but each did contribute
to the continued growth of skin and Scuba diving.

Recreational diving has changed in so many ways in the last
50 years that it is difficult to pinpoint just when certain
changes came about. To quote Nick Icorn from the 50th
Anniversary Edition of SKIN DIVER, lt Two characteristics of
both modem divers and their hearty predecessors are a
passion for the water and a legacy of equipment innovation.
While most early divers were hunters, today many don't even
own a spear. SKIN DIVER has featured a wealth of gear that
has evolved to make diving safer and far more enjoyable for
the sport's ever-widening demographic. It has been a long,
if not sometimes strange, journey."

A magazine is a "storehouse" (of information), according to
Webster's Dictionary. In my opinion, SKIN DIVER MAGAZINE of
the 1950's and 60's is, for the most part, the only American
source for reference material relating to recreational
diving, its activities, personalities, the manufacturers and
retailers of early diving equipment, advertisers, travel,
and the many innovations, trends, and changes over the
years. After 611 issues and 51 years of serving divers and
the diving industry SKIN DIVER has published its last issue,
November 2002.